The July Car Update
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I'm sure traffic is much worse in places other than Cambridge. It's felt small, and a contained craziness to the driving. I'm just not used to people going up on sidewalks. It doesn't happen here in the US, but then we've just got so much space and our cities tend to be designed for cars.
I know England had vehicles first. I'm just surprised the rest of Europe drives on the right and we do too, but the UK hasn't switched. I did like the comment early on about switching the UK over. Move the trucks and the rest will definitely follow in short order
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I used to work with a developer that grew up in Damascus. One day as a bunch of us were going to lunch somebody asked him about differences driving in Syria or the U.S. He said it is much easier driving here than Damascus. Then they asked if he ever got scared on the road in the U.S. He said, “Only when I ride with Charles.”
Left hand shifting does not make sense as, for you righties, that is the weaker arm and you are asking it to transit to the shifter, do the shift, and transit back. With right hand shift you are asking the strong are to do the most work.
Airplane pilots sit on the left. That is by custom and no other good reason. Helicopter pilots, when flying alone, sit on the right but there are good reasons having to do with weight, balance, and rotor spin direction.
Just admit it: The left hand/righthand thing for cars is custom. It's a choice by country. Not right or wrong, just a choice.
ATBCharles Kincaid
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The Pilot in Command sits on the left for a good reason. Right hand being better to hit the second in command when he/she messes up!
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I was in the UK about 5 years ago and drove most of the circumference - London to Dover, Brighton, over to Wales, through the Lake District, up to Edinburgh, down to York, back to London - about 1100 miles in two weeks. I diud find that I needed a break after a couple of hours driving on the "wrong" side of the road from the "wrong" side of the car. After watching my stress driving, my wife refused to drive at all. I have memories of lanes just wide enough for a Ford Focus and the "wide" roads that were 1 1/2 times that width.
I think I did reasonably well; only one driver ever blew a horn at me - in a traffic circle in Wales.
We met some interesting people (the B&B with a Rockola juke box full of 50's 60's rock&roll; Marie, who has a B&B in a 200 year old farmhouse in the Lake District; Lenny, who has a B&B in Edinburgh) and saw some interesting historical sites and some fantastic countrysides. I can understand why the early British settlers wanted to be in Virginia - there are many areas that remind me of places in the UK.
The justification for having the dominant hand for shifting gears is rapidly going away, as only a small percentage of production passenger cars/vans are manual transmission these days. Even some of the larger trucks have automatic transmissions, both rental and commercial - the trash collection trucks typically shift 4 times in the first 200 feet or so. Now the question is which hand should be used for driving and which for the cell phone
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You people all sound like you choose to drive on one side of the line or other!
Up here in the Great North, land of huge 4X4's, SUV's (Expeditions and Suburbans, not wimpy CRV's and the like) Full size vehicles, ATV's, snowmachines and small planes, people pretty much drive wherever they want! Prisus are installed in the back of your pickup just to power your cell phone, DVD player, refrigerator and microwave for use while driving.
If someone objects to your driving, then tell them to stay off the sidewalk!
Okay, I might have embellished that a little.
We use generators instead of a Prisus for that extra power.
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Bob,
You also live in the land of the "Ice Road Truckers". Those brave gents up in Yellow Knife. Down here in the U.S. we can only load 40 thousands pounds in a trailer. Those guys are known to load 86,500 onto a trailer (which has to weigh something itself), fill up both tanks to the rim, and drive.
Side of the road? No, no. There is no road. They are driving on the ice.
Canadians aren't crazy, they just get it done!
ATBCharles Kincaid
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"Ice Road Truckers"
That's located south of us. Up here that is considered a drivers training course for those that come up here from the lower 48.
Amusement park bumper cars are another good form of training
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So the right of way is defined as the GVW in Alaska?
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I lived in Spain for 3 years and while they drove on the correct side of the road (for us Americans) the roads were small, just like most of the cars. My wife brought her 4 wheel pickup drive truck to Spain and we actually had to fold the side mirrors flat against the car to drive on some of the city streets! But we loved living overseas, just have to learn to do things like the locals.
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"Right" or "wrong" side of the road is just a matter of what you grew up with and learned to drive on. Many of us Brits can cope with driving on either side in either type of car as we often hop across to France or the rest of Europe, either with our own right hand drive or hire left hand drive cars. Many buy cars in Europe, often with left hand drive, whilst working or in the forces serving there, yet we still prefer the driving on the left that we grew up with. It's these quirks that make us unique, life would be so boring if we were all identical
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not over here they aren't, not that many brits like the lack of control. Its not natural to put your foot down and nothing to happen for several seconds, suppose it has something to do with having roads that aren't exactly straight......
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"The justification for having the dominant hand for shifting gears is rapidly going away, as only a small percentage of production passenger cars/vans are manual transmission these days. Even some of the larger trucks have automatic transmissions, both rental and commercial - the trash collection trucks typically shift 4 times in the first 200 feet or so. Now the question is which hand should be used for driving and which for the cell phone
"Not quite true. I only know 3 people with automatic cars. One is an American (whom I had to teach how to drive a manual car as he was trying to do a hill start without using the handbrake!), one is severally disabled, and one who was very pregnant when learning to drive and couldn't cope with learning clutch control as well as everything else.
Last time I drove an automatic I very nearly crashed - just couldn't get the control I needed on icy country roads. Long live the manual!
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Diesels would be a lot more popular if the US didn't keep moving the emissions goalpost. Much of the mechanical problems with Ford and other diesels in the past few years relate to the new, relatively unproven designs trying the meet the then current standards, which are going up again (essentially throwing out all those engines). This has a real limitiing factor both on cost and model availability.
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-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
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It might be different elsewhere, but the vast, vast majority of cars sold in the US have either automatic or CVT transmissions. Many cars in the US are just P, R, D and that's it. The Prius is like that.
I much prefer manual transmissions and was hoping my wife would get one for the diesel truck, but she declined
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The main problem with diesels in the US is that the sulphur (I think) content is too high for the new diesels so popular in Europe (i.e. common rail diesels). This problem should be fixed by 2009 when the new diesel quality standard goes into effect I believe. At least some time in the not too distant future, might be 2008.
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